BikinginLA

My apologies for yesterday’s unexcused absence. 

It probably won’t come as any surprise that my diabetes once again got the better of me. 

After struggling for weeks with high blood sugar after a new doctor — and new insurance — switched one of my medications, it took a sudden and unexpected nose dive Monday night, knocking me out for the rest of the night. 

And as you can see, when I finally came back to life, there was a dog sleeping on my head. 

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They get it.

Thanks to Shimano for a rare sympathetic look at bike riders who don’t fit the typical skinny mold.

The film follows two women, who self-identify as fat, on a “two-day bikepacking trip along the Corvallis to Coast Trail, a 65-mile route through the gorgeous Oregon Coast Range.”

And demonstrates that the sheer joy of riding a bicycle has nothing to do with the size of your body.

Seriously, watch it.

Then the next time you’re tempted to indulge in a little fat shaming, on or off a bike, just…

Don’t.

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The Voice of America takes a joyful look at the weekly Electric Light Parade in Venice Beach.

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The LACBC pens a Twitter thread on their self-guided bike ride for the upcoming month. Just click on the tweet to open the thread.

Our self-guided bicycle route for April is out now! FatTire Presents: Zooming in on the Microscopic celebrates National Beer Day & Earth Day by taking a closer look at some local microbes. pic.twitter.com/JBdO7Jc6Un

— BikeLA (@heybikela) March 31, 2021

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If this doesn’t make you want to ride a bike in Trinidad & Tobago, nothing will.

Or better yet, to Trinidad & Tobago. Although you might want to catch a lift for that last wet stage.

https://twitter.com/GreenEDGEteam/status/1376595009408016392

Thanks to Stormin’ Norman for forwarding the video.

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Not only is London’s equivalent of Slow Streets not slowing down emergency responses, they may actually be improving them.

https://twitter.com/citycyclists/status/1375443891474812931

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GCN explains how to keep your bike free from rust.

Because as any Neil Young fan knows, rust never sleeps.

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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.

No windshield bias here. A writer on a South Dakota talk radio site is shocked to learn that bicyclists are allowed to ride in the roadway — even when it’s raining!

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a British police department’s campaign to prevent close passing of bicyclists is met with a barrage of anti-bike comments online. Then again, even the most innocuous pro-bike statements can bring the haters out.

Once again, someone has tried to sabotage a bikeway, as metal tacks were strewn along a popular New Zealand bike lane for the third time in four years.

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Local

It’s not your imagination. Passenger vehicle traffic is up to pre-pandemic levels in Los Angeles, and other cities around the US. Which is exactly what we’ve been warning would happen if the city didn’t invest in safe, efficient spaces for other forms of transportation during the pandemic down time.

Metro still doesn’t get it. The LA County transit agency continues to propose a watered-down alternative to the community-driven Beautiful Blvd plan for a Bus Rapid Transit line along Colorado Blvd in Eagle Rock, omitting the expanded sidewalks, sidewalk-level protected bike lanes and more sidewalk trees residents have called for.

 

State

Chula Vista voted to rename the city’s portion of the Bayshore Bikeway for former mayor, county supervisor and bikeway booster Greg Cox.

A Santa Barbara bike rider suffered abdominal and torsal injuries in a collision with a hit-and-run driver; police are looking for the driver of a green pickup truck.

A Fresno man fondly remembers riding his bike to deliver the local paper in the early ’60s, when the Sunday paper was almost too much for the 90-pound, 12-year old boy.

After getting their Covid shots, a pair of San Francisco men decide to take Krispy Kreme up on its offer for free donuts by hitting up every Bay Area location in a single day. And would have succeeded if their ebike batteries hadn’t died.

 

National

Bloomberg rightly blames laws that lock in dangerous street designs and allow vehicles known to increase the risk to non-motorists for the shocking rise in US traffic fatalities during the pandemic.

Bicycling explains how to use a spoke wrench on your bike. And Yahoo explains it for those of us blocked by Bicycling.

Dutch ebike maker Van Moof says the US is ready to embrace ebikes in big ways.

The meth-fueled crash that killed five Las Vegas bike riders sped up a survivor’s plan to open his own bike shop. Which was just the second biggest decision he made as a result, after proposing to his girlfriend.

North Dakota joins Utah in becoming the latest US states to approve a modified Idaho Stop Law, aka Safety Stop, allowing bike riders to treat stop signs as yields; a similar bill has been introduced in the California legislature.

There’s something seriously wrong when the cops have to remind Ohio drivers that an offroad bike trail isn’t a traffic free shortcut for motor vehicles.

A kindhearted New York cop raised funds to replace the stolen ebike a teen boy living in a group home had just purchased, so he could start working for a food delivery service.

An Atlanta writer explains how to teach your kids to ride safely in a city built for cars. Good skills to have anywhere else, too.

Atlanta Magazine examines the Black bike clubs cranking the city’s two-wheeled revolution.

Family members speak out after a South Florida pastor was run down by a hit-and-run driver on a Miami causeway, leaving him in a coma. If the driver wanted to get away with it, maybe she shouldn’t have used valet parking right afterwards.

Horrifying crash in Miami, as the driver of a three-wheeled car plowed into a group of bicyclists standing on the sidewalk, injuring four people and leaving one woman with critical injuries.

Still more from the country’s most dangerous state for bike riders and pedestrians, as a 75-year old Florida man training for a 500-mile bike ride was killed by a 79-year old woman, who drove into him for “unknown reasons.” Maybe the reason was she shouldn’t have been driving in the first place.

A proposed law would require Florida drivers to move over to pass a bike rider or pedestrian, or at least give riders a three-foot passing distance.

 

International

London’s Independent looks at the best saddle bags for your bike.

There’s a special place in hell for the man who kicked a 13-year old English girl’s wheel to knock her off her bike, then repeatedly kicked her in the stomach before threatening her with a knife, in an apparent random assault.

A professor in the UK says bicycling is ten times more important than electric cars in fighting climate change.

A book excerpt takes a fascinating look at the role bikes, and the female arsonists who rode them, played in winning the vote for British women. And casually mentions Audrey Hepburn used her bicycle to deliver resistance leaflets in her Dutch hometown, and feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir rode a stolen bicycle with Jean-Paul Sartre in Nazi-occupied France.

Great idea. A woman in the UK has created a directory of businesses that deliver by bicycle.

It turns out the Russian consulate employee suspected of stealing hundreds of bikes from French riders was uncovered when the former deputy mayor of Strasbourg spotted his own stolen bike for sale online for half its original value.

 

If you have to get run down by a hit-and-run driver, it might as well be a porn star. If you’re going to forage for parts in a bike shop dumpster, maybe pick one that’s not right behind a police station — and leave the marijuana, fentanyl and meth at home.

And riding tandem is always easier when your partner helps.

https://twitter.com/koan4u/status/1376523382733238274

Thanks to Keith Johnson for the link.

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Be safe, and stay healthy. And wear a mask.